


Sailors' Valentines

by onstraysod



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Future, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Western, Established Relationship, M/M, One Shot Collection, copious amounts of pining, prompt fills
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-08
Updated: 2020-03-15
Packaged: 2020-06-24 12:53:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 6,299
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19724065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onstraysod/pseuds/onstraysod
Summary: Do you mean to lock me away in some love nest, Lieutenant Little? Do you intend to keep me as your lover, your plaything? Your secret sin?A collection of one-shot prompt fills about a captain's steward and the first lieutenant who loves him.





	1. Reflections

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for radiojamming, who requested the prompt "ogle."

The morning inspection of the men had just ended, and Edward Little had come to give his daily report to the captain. But upon entering the great cabin, he found Thomas Jopson inside alone.

“The captain’s just gone up, sir, to look at the ice with Mr. Blanky.” Jopson paused in the midst of dusting the table and turned to face Little, knuckles whitening as he gripped both ends of the cloth, twisting it about his fingers. The weak morning sunlight, filtering through the gallery windows, struck his eyes at an angle that made them appear more grey-blue than green, rather like the waters of the Channel when rainclouds scudded across the length of Jersey.

_As soon as the captain had departed he’d waited, pulse thumping, palms wet against the rag he used to dust and polish, to hear the tread of boots on the boards of the passage outside._

“It may be a few minutes before he returns, sir. Shall I come and fetch you when he does?”

_He tried, every morning, to calm himself so that when that swift rap of knuckles sounded upon the door, when that dark-haired figure edged into the room, he might be able to speak without betraying himself._

“No, that’s all right, Jopson. I’ll wait.” Little turned on his heel to face the nearest cabinet, perusing the titles of the books lined up behind its glass-front doors.

“Very good, sir.” With a small nod, Jopson resumed his duties.

_The first great trial of his day had passed._

The routine hardly ever varied in its particulars. Morning after morning, it proceeded in roughly the same sequence. After inspection, Little would arrive at the great cabin to find the captain gone aloft and Jopson engaged in tidying. He would offer to find Little once the captain had returned; Little would demur. And while Jopson went about dusting and polishing and straightening, Little waited, cap in hand, pacing the few steps between door and stove, and examining Crozier’s books.

Yet, if pressed to do so, the lieutenant would have been unable to name a single title stamped in gold-leaf upon a single calfskin spine. He couldn’t have said if Crozier possessed a copy of _Gulliver’s Travels_ or _Ivanhoe_ , a biography of Nelson, or any of Perry’s accounts of his Arctic voyages.

What he could have described was how well the glass panes in the cabinet doors reflected the interior of the cabin, polished to a high shine as they surely were each day before his arrival by the steward’s busy hands. Fine, long-fingered hands that he watched in the glass, never still, always moving on to a fresh task, the body they belonged to moving also.

Moving beautifully.

In the glass, Little watched Jopson place clean china cups and saucers back on the sideboard shelf where they would rest until it was time for Crozier’s tea. Each time he reached up, the back of the steward’s waistcoat pulled taut across his shoulder blades, hugging the long, lithe muscles that radiated out from his spine to wrap his slender hips and the tight curve of his arse. Finished with the chinaware, Jopson would polish the wooden surface of the table, rubbing vigorously at a scuff mark or moisture ring with a rag, shiny black strips of hair falling in pieces over his brow as he leaned into the work. He would pause occasionally to push these back with the side of a strong wrist before returning to the task, scrubbing until the length of the table shone like the surface of a placid lake.

_He dreaded the first of their daily encounters, the strain it placed on his nerves, even as he longed for it like a thirst, a hunger. After a night deprived of all sight of the lieutenant, the few moments it took to appraise him of the captain’s whereabouts was a gift, allowing Jopson the delight of looking at him._

Little would observe the steward pause, bright eyes searching the room for his next chore. Sometimes, in the searching, Jopson’s gaze would fall upon Little’s back and linger, and he wondered what the steward was thinking in those moments. No doubt Jopson was contemplating what a bore of a man he was, so lacking in conversation and graces. What an unpromising figure he cut for a first lieutenant, his frame hunched up in the heavy, clumsy wool of his greatcoat.

_When he turned back to his work, Jopson held the visual imprint of the lieutenant in his mind as if it were a colored version of one of those daguerreotypes the naturalist on Erebus was fond of making. Instead of the rag in his hand, the surface of the table, the tea cups on the shelf, Jopson saw the man’s lips, the cut of his jaw, the dark thickness of his brown hair. He spent longer than necessary polishing the silver, lost in contemplation of Little’s eyes: dark as storm clouds, yet full of glimmering sparks of light like stars tossed in a tempest._

On his bravest mornings, Little turned to meet the steward’s gaze for a moment before it was diverted, drawn hastily to something across the cabin. Most mornings, however, he continued his secret surveillance in the glass, watching Jopson watch him, the steward’s lips parting as if to speak, then closing as he pivoted away. Little could never help feeling, each time the captain returned, that he’d let something slip through his fingers in the preceding moments, something he might have grasped and held onto had he been a more daring man.

_As stoic as the lieutenant held himself, as few words he said, those eyes revealed all, darkening or lightening depending on the man’s mood. And often, when they met Thomas’s gaze directly, brimming with a warmth that reminded him - in an almost visceral way, deep inside his bones - of lamplight spilling from a window, of a fire burning briskly in a grate. Of home: not Thomas’s real home, a drafty garret in Marylebone, but an ideal home, a nest of soft down sheltered against the wind, a place of whispers and caresses and the comfort of one body tucked into the angles of another through the cold night._

But what that something might have been, Little couldn’t allow himself to imagine. It was all folly. The steward was the handsomest man on _Terror_ \- maybe even the best - too fine to mix with the tars roughened by sun and sea-spray, even those who wore gold fringe on their shoulders. He was like one of the small, bright flowers that bloomed briefly in the Arctic spring, a thing of unimaginable beauty in the midst of the mud and the rocks.

_What nonsense! It was unacceptable. Shaking his head as if to clear a few strands of hair from his eyes, Thomas endeavored to clear his mind of these distracting thoughts. He could not allow himself to go any further down that fantastical road. Edward Little was an officer, the first lieutenant of Terror no less; he would never deign to risk his rank, his career, the respect of the other officers, for an illicit relationship, much less with a lowly steward._

_No, it was likely that Edward Little had barely noticed him beyond the few words they exchanged to fulfill their separate duties. Even now, alone together in the captain’s cabin, he preferred to look at Crozier’s books._


	2. Raw

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for whalersandsailors, who requested the prompt "basorexia," the overwhelming desire to kiss, from the [Writing Challenge Prompt List](https://shannaraisles.tumblr.com/post/178246864645/writing-challenge-prompt-list)

He’d licked his lips raw for want of it. The silken slide of his own tongue was a poor but necessary substitute, helping for brief moments to relieve his cravings. When this grew too painful, cracks forming in the tender, dried-out flesh, he resorted to other forms of oral stimulation. He sucked on the stem of a pipe, gritted and ground his teeth; he even took to biting his fingernails in one hour of madness, but quickly cured himself of that, the act being unfit for an officer.

There were certain times when the need hit him hardest. The sleepless hours in his bunk, when an errant chill or memories of the day’s unpleasant duties kept him staring into the darkness, anticipating the next inevitable groan of the ice. At least there he had the solace of turning his face against his pillow or - how shameful to admit it - the back of his own hand. Pressing his mouth to cloth or flesh, he indulged his imagination, his habit of long, surreptitious study supplying such detail that he could almost fancy he felt the minute scratch of black stubble against his chin, the supple yielding of another pair of lips to the soft suction of his mouth.

It was worse in the wardroom. Lifetimes of agony passed as forks and ladles transferred the contents of tureens and platters to each plate. Torturous were the minutes waiting for the captain to take the first bite as protocol demanded. Once the meal had begun proper, he could tip a stream of ale or claret between his lips and wonder if either tasted as sweet as the object of his desire. The alcohol tingled against the inside of his cheeks like swipes of an exploratory tongue, and he closed his eyes for brief moments to savor the association.

When he opened his eyes again, it was to see across the table the lips that made his mouth water. The jawline he longed to cup in his hands. The dimpled nose he wished to brush with his own. For an instant, the other man raised his eyes from the glass he was refilling and met the lieutenant’s stare, and Edward Little fought against his urges, fought against the impulse to lunge across the table and claim the steward right in front of the captain. He remained in his seat, lowered his gaze, pushed the mutton around his plate with the edge of his fork. But it was hard. His mouth, his hands, the whole of him hungered for the steward. Marooned on a desert isle, the only nectar that could now sustain him flowed from the petals of Thomas Jopson’s lips.


	3. Close Work

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Edward Little's sideburns need a trim...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for the prompt "Jopson sits in Little's lap and trims his mutton chops"

Thomas paused for a moment at the door, his ear to the wood, listening for the least sound of movement from within Crozier’s bed place. Hearing nothing, he turned back to the one pressing duty he had left for the evening…

Which he began by getting himself into the position with the best vantage point for such close, detailed work: straddling Lieutenant Little’s lap.

“You make very free with my person, Mr. Jopson,” Edward said, his words fading off into a quiet moan as Thomas settled upon him. The steward’s eyes sparkled, a sunshine of mischief shimmering on sea-foam, and he bit at his bottom lip in a coquettish manner as he braced his hands upon Edward’s shoulders.

“You might make a formal complaint to the captain, sir.” Thomas stroked his fingers through the lieutenant’s hair, down into the thick whiskers that framed his face, his touch light and teasing. “He could order me to be more respectful of the proper boundaries.”

“Then that’s something I definitely _won’t_ do.” Edward leaned forward, his gaze fixed on the steward’s sumptuous lips, but Thomas dodged away at the last moment, laughing quietly as his mouth found the edge of Edward’s ear. He nipped, using just a hint of teeth; Edward responded by running his strong, broad hands along the outside of Thomas’s thighs until he could cup them to the curve of the steward’s arse.

“But then I’m forgetting that you **are** the captain for the time being, aren’t I, sir?” Thomas swirled the tip of his tongue against Edward’s neck just below his earlobe and felt the lieutenant’s breath hitch, felt the involuntary way he tilted his hips up to more firmly press against Thomas’s groin. “Which means I must follow your _every order_.”

Edward caressed up Thomas’s back, fingers stealing beneath waistcoat and jumper to skim over the fabric of his shirt, drawing patterns at the base of the steward’s spine. “Then kiss me,” he murmured. “That’s an order.”

Thomas drew his face back, letting his stubbled cheek graze Edward’s; his mouth opened to Edward’s eager kiss, but before the lieutenant could taste more than a warm breath, Thomas edged away again, down to Edward’s throat, biting gently just beneath the edge of the lieutenant’s collar.

 _“Thomas.”_ There was a note of remonstrance in the helpless mewl of Edward’s tone, and Thomas grinned.

“You didn’t specify **_where_** you wanted me to kiss you, sir,” he whispered.

“You’re a wicked man, Mr. Jopson.” Edward raked a hand through Thomas’s hair, groaning when the other rocked forward against him just so. “How is it you’ve deceived the captain so completely into thinking otherwise?”

Thomas shrugged, finally bringing his mouth to Edward’s: the long-awaited kiss was languid and deep. “I’m perfectly well-behaved in the captain’s company. It’s only you, Mr. Little, who brings out the devil in me.” He pressed his lips to the freckled slope of Edward’s nose, then to the tip; Edward tilted his face up to catch Thomas’s mouth, their tongues sliding to tangle with hot, desperate need. Thomas wrapped his arms firmly around Edward’s neck and, whimpering into the lieutenant’s mouth, pushed against him, deepening the kiss until finally they both had to pull away out of a sheer need to breathe.

“You said I make free with your body,” Thomas whispered, tracing a fingertip along the arch of one of Edward’s eyebrows. “In truth, I sometimes forget it belongs to another person. I know it so well now it feels like an extension of my own.”

“It is.” Edward angled his head into the space between the steward’s collar and jaw, pressing lips and nose to the flesh shadowed with black stubble, inhaling Thomas’s scent. “All yours, to do with just as you please.”

Inhaling deeply, Thomas tilted his head back to allow the lieutenant just that bit more room to nibble, the brush of Edward’s tongue sending curls of delight straight to his loins. Edward, meanwhile, tried to tamp down on the hot, surging pressure that threatened to have his prick standing like a mainmast straining before the wind. He cast a glance at the door of Crozier’s berth to assure himself that they were still unobserved, and wondered how long he could bear to keep his trousers fastened.

“I’m supposed to be trimming your whiskers, remember?” Thomas said, grinning, as Edward leaned back again.

“I thought perhaps you’d forgotten.”

Shaking his head, Thomas lifted his hands to run both sets of fingers through Edward’s facial hair. “Now I find I can’t bring myself to do it. It’d be like cutting a horse’s mane.” His eyes glimmered with wickedness. “I rather like having something to hold on to when I’m riding hard.”

It was a very good thing that Crozier was sleeping so soundly, given how the evening proceeded after that.


	4. Hidden Talents

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Something was required to rouse the lieutenant from his melancholy..._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for an anonymous prompt: _If you don’t mind me sending a Lopson prompt (that’s mostly just fluff): Thomas does anything he can to make Edward laugh, just because he laughs so infrequently, but he looks so incredibly handsome when he does._

It was a skill not many people knew he possessed. Not even the captain.

Thomas had his public talents and his private ones. Mending socks and sewing buttons back on cuffs, starching collars and dabbing out stains: these were well known. But his gift for mimicry was - like the back rubs his nimble fingers performed on stiff muscles, and the pleasures his tongue could bestow - a secret he shared with very few. It was like a gem that would lose its sheen if exposed to the air too frequently, something to be brought out only on the darkest of days to throw a little light around.

This was one of those days. Edward was seated at the table in the great cabin, waiting for Crozier to return from a visit to _Erebus_ so he could give his evening report. It had been a particularly brutal day, weather-wise, a gale-force wind blowing from the northwest, bringing with it the bone-numbing chill of the pack; but one corner of the canvas sheeting that sheltered the deck during the winter months had come loose, and Edward had had to supervise a party of sailors sent out to tack it back in place. He’d staggered into the great cabin at a time when Thomas was alone and free of duties, and the steward had immediately steered his lover into the seat nearest the stove and fetched him a steaming cup of tea.

But something more was needed. Edward’s mood was depressed - maybe just from exhaustion, maybe from something that had happened out on the ice: Thomas would gently nudge him to get the truth of it later, when their bodies were slotted snug in the bunk and Edward’s guard was pliable beneath the weight of his weariness. In the meantime, something was required to rouse the lieutenant from his melancholy. If they’d been guaranteed solitude for another half hour or so, he would have put himself in Edward’s lap or knelt between his thighs, but the captain and Mr. Blanky would be arriving at any moment, and Thomas didn’t trust either himself or Edward to hear approaching footsteps while deep in shared ecstasy. 

So something else…

Clearing his throat, Thomas paused on the opposite side of the table and turned to face Edward. “I quite enjoy Henry Russell’s music, you know; I play “Woodman, Spare That Tree” on the clavier, and my aunt’s cousin’s best friend - who saw the Hutchinson Family Singers in Hanover Square in ‘41 - said she’d never heard better.”

For a moment, Edward stared at Thomas in a sort of blank stupor, his mouth hanging open. Then, abruptly, he expelled a sound somewhat like the bark of a harbor seal, and the smile Thomas had been aching to see broke across the lieutenant’s face like the dawn. Wolfish with sharp, slightly jagged canines punctuating each end, the smile narrowed Edward’s eyes, crinkling the corners and lighting their dark depths with a shower of stars, and laughter bubbled up from him in a frothy, uncontrolled stream.

“Thomas.” Edward shook his head, a half-hearted rebuke given the helpless giggles still emanating from him. Thomas was laughing too, struck with infectious joy.

“You will think me terribly immodest,” he continued in the same reedy tone with its crisp enunciation, “but I assure you, I’m entirely in earnest.”

“You’re wicked, Thomas,” Edward choked out, raising his mittened hand to his mouth to try and muffle his laughter.

“I feel badly about it,” Thomas admitted, unable to take his eyes off Edward’s smile, all the more dazzling for its rarity, “he’s always so kind to me, but he makes it _so easy_ …”

“No, not that. I meant for hiding this talent from me for so long. You have a gift! Can you do anyone else?”

Thomas worked to control his face as he gave it some thought. Then, clearing his throat again, he gripped the back of the chair in front of him and, leaning forward, fixed Edward with a steely glare.

“Aye, sir, that’s pack ice up ahead, right enough, thick enough to rip the goddamn keel off the bloody ship if that fool at the helm don’t steer us hard to larboard.”

Edward _dissolved_ : doubling over, his whole body shook with laughter, and when he raised himself back up, his cheeks were red and tears leaked copiously from his scrunched-up eyes. Thomas had never wanted so badly to kiss him as he did at that moment; he longed to grasp Edward’s face and press his lips to that wide smile, to the lines radiating from the corners of his eyes, to the heavy dark brows knitted up in the center and the apples of his cheeks, so charmingly plumped up and rounded. He would kiss him and kiss him, never pausing, until he collapsed from want of breath or the world ended, whichever came first. Watching Edward laugh, Thomas felt light as air, as high and warm and buoyant as the sun riding its way across some southern sky.

“And dare I ask,” Edward muttered, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand, “can you do the captain?"

Thomas bit his lip. “Well, _I could_. But you’ll have to wait until we’re safely alone for that one.”

Edward was still beaming as he spread his arms. “Come here.”

Glancing at the cabin door, Thomas risked it, letting the lieutenant embrace him. He bent to press a kiss to Edward’s temple, and Edward cupped the side of the steward’s face, his fingers warm now: warm and tender against Thomas’s cheek.

“I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating: you are a wonder, Thomas Jopson.”

Thomas passed his fingers through the hair at Edward’s brow, that untidy wave that seemed to exist solely to tempt him. “I’m just an ordinary man.”

But in his mind he added: _a man madly in love_ , and there was nothing ordinary about that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special thanks to Wikipedia for supplying me with enough knowledge of [Henry Russell](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Russell_\(musician\)) to allow me to write this!


	5. Sweet to My Taste

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _"Do you mean to lock me away in some love nest, Lieutenant Little? Do you intend to keep me as your lover, your plaything? Your secret sin?”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for [Sol_Invictus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sol_Invictus), who requested the prompt _[Your summer-sweet, strawberry puppy love](https://pinespittinink.tumblr.com/post/185590810312/sensory-prompts)_ for Little/Jopson.
> 
> Title taken from Song of Solomon 2:3

They had lain together in contented silence for some time, Thomas’s head pillowed on Edward’s shoulder, his left hand drawing lazy patterns across the lieutenant’s clothed chest. It was abysmally cold, too cold for baring any skin, save for the fingers that had worked their trembling way into trousers and drawers, the faces that had pressed together, lips open and questing for fresh places to kiss. Edward rubbed the tip of his nose against the soft line of Thomas’s hair, inhaling his scent, and Thomas lifted his head, his breath now quite recovered, and captured Edward’s mouth with his own, humming a low savoring moan as his tongue twisted and explored.

The kiss ended gradually, an infinitesimal parting of their lips accompanied by a soft smack of suction. “I love the taste of you,” Thomas whispered, letting his mouth linger, Edward’s whiskers tickling against his chin.

“And what do I taste like?” Edward’s voice was full of amusement. “Other than pipe smoke and Allsopp’s?”

Shaking his head, letting the dimpled end of his nose brush against Edward’s, Thomas smiled. “You taste like none of that. You taste like…” He suckled gently at the lieutenant’s lips, the tip of his tongue slipping deftly between. “Mmmm. Like mulled cider. Warm and rich and spicy.”

“Oh, it’s spice you want, is it?” Edward nipped at Thomas’s earlobe and the steward laughed.

“Cinnamon and allspice and cloves. That’s you. Earthy and dark, but sweet beneath the surface.” He licked at Edward’s bottom lip. “God, how I want to roll around in you. Coat myself in your scent, your flavor, until I don’t know the difference between your skin and mine.”

Edward’s hands roved, kneading and grasping. “Should I tell you what you taste like?”

“Something good, I hope.”

“Strawberries. Ripe, sweet strawberries. Soft and wet.” His fingers stole beneath the waist of Thomas’s trousers, and the steward shivered as Edward petted the tender flesh of his backside, cupping his palm to the curve of one side. “Smooth on the inside, like your tongue.”

“Are you sure my tongue is the only part of me you liken to the inside of a strawberry?”

Edward tilted his head back, laughing even as he blushed. “You’ve a very dirty mouth, Mr. Jopson.”

“Which tastes like sweet spring fruit, apparently.”

“Indeed.”

Thomas eased more of his weight upon the lieutenant, raising himself on one elbow to trace the bow of Edward’s mouth with his finger. “I’d like to feed you strawberries. Push them between your lips.” In lieu of fruit, he slipped his fingertip into Edward’s mouth and the lieutenant swirled his tongue around it before starting to suckle, his dark eyes lustrous and fixed on Thomas’s own. “Watch you bite through them. Drink the juice off your chin.”

“I wish I had chests of allspice and cinnamon,” Edward told him. “I’d lay you bare and rub you down, then lick you clean.”

Thomas groaned and, rutting lazily against Edward, claimed his mouth. “When we get home, I’ll fill a garden with strawberries for you. I’ll wake you each morning with a bowl of strawberries in fresh cream.”

“I’ll eat it from your hands,” Edward growled.

“I’ll make you strawberry tarts. And strawberry ices.” Thomas pressed a kiss to Edward’s face between naming each delicacy. “Strawberry puddings. And shortcake. Strawberries dipped in melted chocolate.”

“Can you make all of those things?” Edward asked, astonished admiration shining in his eyes.

“Not a one.” Blushing, Thomas laughed. “But I’ll learn. I promise.”

“And I promise to mull cider for you.” Edward threaded his fingers through Thomas’s and they clasped hands, palm to palm. “I’ll lay the fire every morning and evening, keep it stoked, keep the kettle boiling. You’ll never feel cold again.”

Still moving his clothed groin sensuously against Edward’s, and flushed with the mounting excitement of that sweet friction, Thomas leaned down and rested his brow against the lieutenant’s. “Do you mean to lock me away in some love nest, Lieutenant Little? Do you intend to keep me as your lover, your plaything? Your secret sin?”

“Thomas.” Edward exhaled his name, half a sigh, half a groan. His hips were moving beneath Thomas’s, rutting with the same quickening rhythm. “I’ll never hide you away. If this is sin, I’ll make no secret of it.” He feasted on Thomas’s lips: one, two, a dozen kisses. “Yes, I’ll keep you. But I’ll stay with you, I’ll live with you, and the rest of the world be damned.”

“Our own hearth, then? Our own garden, spilling over with strawberries?” Whimpering as the friction built to a dazzling pitch, Thomas laid his face against Edward’s. “Our own bed?”

Edward wrapped his arms tightly around Thomas, his panted breath a cloud of frost against the steward’s hot skin. “What more do we need?”


	6. A Man of Honor (With a Black Eye)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ed Little will do whatever it takes to defend Tom Jopson's honor. Even if it costs him a black eye and a fat lip.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for mimibelle76 for the prompt, "fistfight"

“I was defending your honor.”

Tom sighed as he dabbed rubbing alcohol on the cut above Edward’s right eyebrow. “You’re an idiot, do you know that? A handsome, wonderful idiot. You could have wound up with much worse than a black eye and fat lip, and my honor would definitely _not_ have been worth that.”

“I couldn’t just stand by and do nothing! That horrible little rat of a man.” Edward snarled out the words, then flinched as Tom applied more alcohol. “He made… insinuations.”

“Oh dear, not insinuations.” Tom’s lips twitched. He set the bottle of alcohol aside and took up the cold compress, holding it gingerly against Edward’s swollen eyelid. “Well, tell me.”

“I won’t repeat such foul–--"

“Tell me,” Tom repeated, his voice stern, and as always, Edward caved.

“He said… something about you being from Marylebone and that I was… slumming.”

Tom was silent for a moment; then, to Edward’s great surprise, he burst out laughing. “And are you? Does it make you feel dirty, Edward, taking me to bed?” He lowered his voice, whispering mischievously. “Does it make you hard when you think about rolling around with Marylebone filth?”

“You know it’s not true!” Edward cried with some heat. “I told him that if being with the most beautiful, caring, compassionate man in the world is considered slumming, I’d hate to know what being with the likes of him is called. Then I punched him in the mouth.” Edward grinned, wincing just a little at the pain this caused his lip. “He’ll be worse off than me in the morning. Short a couple of teeth, at least. I had him good–”

“He pulled a knife on you, Edward!”

“Which I dodged! And I wouldn’t have gotten this much had his Marine boyfriend not felt the need to come to his defense. Bloody lobster.”

“You started a free-for-all. Thank God Crozier came in when he did.” It might have been Tom Blanky’s pub, but when Blanky’s old friend Captain Crozier yelled _ON YOUR KNEES!_ in that angry Irish brogue, everybody obeyed: even the people who weren’t brawling. “Please promise me you’ll never do something so stupid again. Not even for my sake.”

Edward caught Tom’s hands in his. “I can’t do that. I won’t stand idly by and hear a bad word uttered about you, Tom.” He lifted Tom’s hands to his mouth and pressed kisses to the backs of his fingers. “I love you too much for that.”

Tom sighed again and freed one hand to run it affectionately through Edward’s hair. “My knight in shining armor. Protector, defender. Champion. How can I show him my gratitude?” He kissed Edward’s left brow, then his right, then met his lover’s lips tenderly. “Too sore for kissing?” he asked as he eased away.

“Never,” Edward assured him, and he pulled Tom onto his lap intent on proving it.


	7. No Inhibitions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the future, Thomas Jopson is an android and Edward Little is a very lucky man

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Three-sentence fic written for whalersandsailors, who requested a sci-fi or cyberpunk Joplittle

The neural ports embedded in both temples, and the thin neon lines of cyber-transmitter pathways running out of his black hair and down both sides of his neck, made it clear that the man standing in Edward’s bedroom was part android: admittedly, the most beautiful mash-up of human flesh and advanced tech Edward had ever seen.

“My programming is adaptable,” Thomas - for that was the name he’d told Edward he answered to - explained as he perched on the edge of the bed, “and you can train me to do whatever it is you desire me to do; I will learn what you like and what you don’t, and respond accordingly. Please don’t be shy,” he added, noticing - no doubt with the aid of some infrared optical enhancements - the rush of hot, shameful blood to Edward’s cheeks (not to mention other, more scandalous places), “my entire purpose is to please you, and I have no preset inhibitions: anything you wish for, it will be my pleasure to provide.”


	8. Single Issues (Edward Little/Thomas Jopson)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> George Hodgson reveals Edward Little's most shameful secret in front of Edward's crush, Thomas Jopson

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for whalersandsailors for the prompt "that was supposed to be a secret"

When the frigates of Admiral Sir John Franklin’s group dropped anchor in the harborage at Gibraltar, the men could barely wait for permission to go ashore. Five days’ furlough on dry land beneath a Mediterranean sun awaited both officers and able seamen, and when permission was finally given, they surged into the town like a tsunami, headed straight for the nearest pubs. The officers were more measured in their behavior if not their excitement; after discharging their duties for the day, they strolled ashore with as much an air of dignity as they could muster. Some were more successful than others.

“Three smoking hot Spanish ladies bearing SSW,” Lieutenant George Hodgson said, returning to his friends at a patio table outside a seaside restaurant. He set three bottles of beer down and lowered his pink-frame sunglasses to gaze slyly at the aforementioned ladies. When his fellow lieutenants Edward Little and John Irving turned to look, Hodgson hissed. “Don’t look, don’t look! Okay, look, but don’t be so obvious about it. Is it my imagination, or are they looking at me with blatant desire?”

The three women in question were gazing in Hodgson’s direction, whispering eagerly to one another, playing with their hair and looking very excited. Edward took a swig of beer. “Commander Fitzjames is standing behind you.”

“Oh bloody hell!” Hodgson cried, sitting down after a quick look over his shoulder. Sure enough, Fitzjames stood in the door to the cafe, his mane of dark hair ruffled by the breeze, a pair of aviators perched on his long nose, looking for all the world like he’d just stepped off the cover of a nautical-themed issue of GQ.

“My star is always being eclipsed by his sun,” Hodgson complained dramatically.

“The sun is just another star,” John observed. “And God made them to be admired in the night.”

“That’s right,” Edward agreed, tipping his beer bottle towards Hodgson. “Your star is meant to be admired at night. When all the lights are off.”

“Ha ha, very funny,” Hodgson muttered while John, despite himself, hid a snicker behind a cough. “I’ll get you for that, Ed, and sooner than you think. Oy! Jopson!”

The steward had just emerged from inside the cafe and was rushing across the patio toward the stairs leading down to the harbor. He turned in surprise and walked over to the lieutenants’ table. As he drew near, Edward hunched over his beer bottle, staring fixedly into its depths.

“Yes sir?”

“Join us, won’t you?” George suggested, pulling out the chair beside him. Jopson smiled.

“That’s very kind, sir, but I need to get back to the ship. I was just consulting with Captain Crozier–”

“Surely you’ve not been denied furlough?” Hodgson cried. “You work harder than the rest of us put together!”

“No, I’ll start my furlough later today. I just suggested to the captain that now might be a good time to the give the men’s starboard berths a proper cleaning. I’m supervising the janitorial team.”

“Ah! Well surely you can join us for one beer before you return to supervising?” Hodgson gestured to a waitress, holding up his beer bottle. “Uno más, por favor.”

“I suppose it wouldn’t hurt, sir. Thank you.” As Jopson made to come around the table and take the chair beside Irving, Hodgson jumped up.

“Take mine, please! It’s more in the shade!” As he rose, he pushed the chair closer to Edward, forcing Jopson to brush Edward’s arm as he angled into the seat. Edward hunched lower over his beer.

“I suppose the captain will order our cabins cleaned before the week is up,” Hodgson mused aloud as the waitress brought Jopson’s drink. “A good thing, I’m sure, but so much work! Hauling out all our stuff.” He sighed. “I’ll have to pack my accordion in its case and bring it out.” At the mention of the accordion, John’s nose wrinkled. “John will have to pack up all of his Bibles. And Edward will have to drag out all his comic books.”

Edward’s head snapped up. The look he fixed Hodgson with was positively lethal.

“That was supposed to be a secret,” he growled, his cheeks flaming. Hodgson shrugged.

“Oh look, John! There’s a fish symbol on the sign above that shop over there - I think it might be a Christian bookstore! Let’s go see!”

“It’s clearly a shop for fishing gear–” John’s objection went unheeded. Hodgson grabbed him by the collar and hauled him out of his chair, and in seconds the two men were gone.

Leaving Edward alone with Jopson.

There was a long silence as Edward, looking as if he’d acquired an instant sunburn, stared into the depths of his beer bottle as if he might dive bodily inside it. Jopson cleared his throat.

“So you like comic books?”

Edward gulped. “Some.”

Jopson nodded. “Who’s your favorite?”

Edward looked up at this. “My favorite?”

“Superhero?”

“Oh. Uh, well, I mostly read _Star Wars_ comics.” Edward winced, painfully aware of having just dug himself into a deeper geek hole.

“You like _Star Wars_? Me too. I was always Leia.” This odd statement brought Edward’s gaze back to Jopson’s face. The steward laughed. “Let me explain. I mean, I always had to play the role of Leia when I was a kid, because my younger brother always wanted to be Luke. So he’d come to rescue me on the Death Star and I always had to say, _‘aren’t you a little short for a stormtrooper?’_ and all that.”

Jopson’s eyes were sparkling and Edward found, to his surprise, that he was suddenly unable to look away. “Did you - you know–” Edward made a circular motion by the side of his head, which made Jopson laugh again.

“The buns? An old pair of our mother’s earmuffs. Yeah, what you won’t do for a baby brother, right? If I wasn’t Leia, I had to be Vader. Or a random stormtrooper with terrible aim.”

Edward grinned. “That’s every stormtrooper.”

“That’s true.”

“I always wanted to be Han,” Edward confessed. “But I had several younger brothers to please, so I very rarely got to be.”

“Who were you most of the time?”

Edward grimaced. “Chewbacca.”

This seemed to delight Jopson. “I’d ask you to say something in Wookiee, but I’m not that cruel.”

“Thank you.” Edward drained the last of his beer. “So who was your favorite superhero?”

Jopson considered the question for a moment. “Superman. Hands down.”

“Really? Why did you like him?”

Jopson shrugged, holding Edward’s gaze. “What’s not to like? He’s handsome, dark-haired, dependable. And he always comes along to make things right.”

Edward felt a wave of heat come over him that had nothing to do with the summer sun. Jopson tipped back his bottle for a long drink, then stood. “I’d best get back to the ship.”

“Batman.”

Jopson stopped. “I beg your pardon?”

“My favorite superhero,” Edward said, gazing up at him. “It’s Batman.”

Jopson nodded slowly, his lips curving into a wide smile. “Yeah. I can see that.” He held his hand up in front of Edward’s face, above the lieutenant’s mouth. “Yes. With that cleft in your chin, you’d look good in a cowl.” Jopson gave Edward a wink. “My Dark Knight.”

He walked away, leaving Edward in desperate need of another drink.


	9. Wanted

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A deputy and a wanted man

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Three-sentence fic written for lafiametta who requested a Western AU

The gun belt was as much a part of Edward as his long eyelashes and toothy grin, the pearl-handle Colt .45 “peacemakers” on each hip a reassuring weight with men like Hickey on the loose. But he allowed the marshal’s black-haired deputy to slide his slender, nimble fingers to the buckle, let him work it loose as the man’s unbearably soft lips teased and tugged at his own, and when the belt slipped down his thighs, Edward didn’t flinch at the sound of the guns hitting the floorboards, knowing well that he would need no weapons here. He tore at the buttons of Tom’s shirt, bit softly into the elegant curve of the man’s throat, and the deputy moaned and pulled him closer; and it seemed right, in a twisted sort of way, that they do this against the wall where the wanted poster bearing Edward’s bearded visage hung, the act a wild and reckless claiming of a different kind of reward.


End file.
